Chapter 15. Investigation of Own Nature

The arising of own nature out of causes and conditions does not stand to reason; an own nature that had arisen from causes and conditions would be something made.

And how could an own nature be called something made? For own nature is unmade and does not depend on anything else.

If own nature is absent, where would other-nature come from? For what is called other-nature is the own nature of something else.

And without own nature and other-nature, where would an existent come from? For an existent is established only when own nature and other-nature are there.

If an existent is not proved, a non-existent is not established either; for what people call a non-existent is the otherness of an existent.

Those who see own nature and other-nature, an existent and a non-existent, do not see the truth in the Buddha’s teaching.

In the instruction to Kātyāyana both “it is” and “it is not” were denied by the Blessed One, who discerns existence and non-existence.

If existence belonged to a thing by its [own] nature, there could be no non-existence of it; for an otherness of [own] nature is never possible.

If there is no [own] nature, in what will otherness arise? And if there is an [own] nature, in what will otherness arise?

“It is” is a grasping at eternity; “it is not” is the view of annihilation. Therefore the discerning one should rely neither on existence nor on non-existence.

What exists by own nature is not non-existent — and that is eternalism. “Now it is not, but earlier it was” — from this annihilation follows.